I know everyone wants the latest and greatest software for their machine. And I know that nobody wants to do the work involved in packaging and disseminating Firefox X.X. But is the repeated whine, the incessant murmur, the inescapable sense of entitlement really doing anything to expedite the process?

I won’t complain about the complaining (metacomplain?) too much, since it’s something I described better, and in stronger terms, about a year ago. But I stand by all those comments — including the ones that painted some people as petulant or impudent — because a year later things are still the same.

One major release in a common application, and suddenly there is a weak-sauce revolution underway because there hasn’t been an update in the hours since it was announced. And the complaining, and the whining, and the threats to move to another distro … it’s all old news.

All of this, to me, goes back to the point I made last year — that Linux users are in a better position to upgrade things manually, on their own, and not rely at all on someone else’s benevolence to keep them up-to-date. Perhaps some people feel they lack the skills to do that, but they certainly don’t lack the tools. And really, considering you can download a precompiled Linux binary, uncompress and use it, the “I can’t” excuse doesn’t really hold water. You’ll get no sympathy from me.

But I don’t expect this weak little counter-complaint off in some corner of the Netiverse to change anything. As soon as KillerApp version 1.0.0.1a is announced, somebody, somewhere will start the whine again. …

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6 thoughts on “A little cheese, for your whine”

Aside from security patches, I really see no need to have the latest and greatest etc… etc…

The vast majority of software packages should be adopted for stability and security on production machines. Now if you’re only tinkering, then bleeding edge is just fine. But on the job, it should be stable and stable alone!

A system is only as functional, stable, safe and secure as the admin who choses wisely. A vast majority of these complaints can be resolved with a little common sense and some patience.

I’m of the opinion that Ubuntu’s way of doing things is better for the so-called Jane Sixpack or “average user.” Most people I know in real life (not virtually, through the Ubuntu Forums) have no idea Firefox 3.5 came out. They’re still using Firefox 3.0 or actually even 2.0.

It’s only the power users who care about getting the latest and greatest on release day. For those people, it shouldn’t be so much trouble to copy and paste one line into the terminal to get the official precompiled binary “installed.” I really don’t see what the big deal is.